So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ (John 6:67-69)

Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.  (Ephesians 6:13-20)

How can we find a way of life that will express an authentic expression of our love and willingness to serve God? Timothy Sedgwick, ethics scholar, says that “Welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison, forgiving those who have acted against us, and perhaps most prosaically, but fundamentally sharing meals together in table fellowship—in these actions Christians claim they experience the full presence of God in a way that orients, reorients, forms, and transforms the roles and relations of everyday life.” When we do these things we move closer to what God wants us to become. In other words, we move closer to the abundant life, which is what God created us for. In moral terms, vices are those things that corrupt our human powers and capacities and virtues are the perfection of human powers and capacities. The theological virtues are faith, hope and love. Faith is the knowledge of God and the act of knowing God and brings us to a trust in God. Hope is an expectation of new opportunities and joys. Love is the experience of being loved by God. We might think we are headed in the right direction, but our arrogance makes us vulnerable.

How we love our neighbors that are different from us indicates how we love the Lord. Jesus said that what counts is what’s inside. Our actions through the power of the Holy Spirit change people from the inside out. Sedgewick said, “The presence of God given in worship is inseparable from the call into the covenant of hospitality that is our daily life…only in the covenant of hospitality do we acknowledge that we share a common humanity. In this is the ground for justice.”

In Christ's Love,

Fr. Duncan

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Last week, I helped us understand part of the meaning of “the bread of life” through Winnie the Pooh. Communion with Jesus Christ teaches us to love others as we have been loved by God. God loves us unconditionally and sent Jesus Christ that we might know how to be in communion with one another and with Christ. As a boy loves his bear or his pets, God loves us. There is an innocence of a child loving his stuffed animal that parallels Gods love for all of us. Maybe you have this same relationship with your spouse, partner, friends, or pets. At St. John’s we believe that Jesus is the son of the living God. The bread of life brings us in communion with Jesus and through following the Gospel, we learn how to love others and do the will of God. We struggle to understand something that is so basic to our happiness.

Today’s lesson from John’s Gospel has certainly been difficult to understand throughout history. The idea of bread coming down from heaven was probably not hard for Jews in Jesus' time because they had the stories of manna coming from God during the exodus. The idea that second century Christians ate the body and blood of Jesus would have been very difficult to grasp. As you are probably aware, the very idea of drinking blood runs contrary to Jewish law. The derivation of the Eucharist does come in part from the Jewish family meal. Before the meal, a loaf of bread was blessed, prayers were spoken and the bread was shared. After the meal, a cup of wine was blessed, more elaborate prayers were spoken and the cup was passed. The Jewish service at the temple included one reading from Moses and one from the Hebrew Bible. Psalms were read, the shema would be sung, prayers were then given and the teaching of scripture would follow. The shema was prayed numerous times each day:

She-ma yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad

Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One

This verse is followed by one line of text that is traditionally recited in an undertone:

Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va-ed

Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever

The remainder of the Shema prayer is taken from three biblical sources:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:5-9).

At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches the disciples a new understanding of this ritual. Jesus was Jewish and therefore would have celebrated the Passover. Jesus simplifies the law in two commandments. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. You all know the words of institution from the Eucharist. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to the disciples, “Take, eat, This is my body which is given for you.” Jesus blood and body are given for our sins. In Jesus suffering, death and resurrection we are offered new life in him. The wine and bread become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The early Christians shared a meal at their first services and eventually shared just bread and wine. Jesus simplified our understanding of complicated Jewish law to just two commandments. Love God and love one another. At times religion can make very simple concepts hard to understand, but communion is simply relationship with God and one other.

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Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:1-2).

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).This statement is crucial to our faith because Jesus Christ came down from heaven to show us the will of the father. In Jesus time many complained that they knew Jesus’ mother and father. How could this man say that he is the bread of heaven? After he feeds the five thousand and walks on water, some people just can’t rationalize that something that is greater than us is going on. Jesus replies that “whoever believes has eternal life for I am the bread of life.” We are asked to see Jesus Christ as the top priority in our life.

At the 10:00 service on Sunday and at the 11:30 service, I will ask if you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, if you will continue in the apostles’ teachings and the breaking of bread, if will you repent and turn to the Lord when you sin, if will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, if you will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself and if will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? If you earnestly answer, I will with God’s help, The water that these children will be baptized in is the very same water through which God led the people out of their bondage in Egypt, the very same water Jesus turned into wine, the exact water that John poured over Jesus’ head at his Baptism when he was anointed as the Messiah and the heavens tore open.

We are drawn in by the grace of God, forgiven of our sins by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and have been given the promise of eternal life. In the letter to the church at Ephesus, we are challenged to live our lives in the Kingdom of God. "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice for God." We are beloved children of God who witness the mystery of God’s love right here at St. John’s. Those of us who have glimpsed of the eternal and live in faith have a responsibility to let our light shine to our own children and to the next generations. I remember one visit home while in college. After church, I went with my father delivering sandwiches to the homeless in Bay Shore. At a time that I was drifting away from the Lord, it absolutely blew me away that my dad knew these people by name. My faith was restored and I began doing service work at school. We must persevere in our faith and witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ by giving of ourselves for the sake of others. There was a day when faith in Jesus Christ and living in the life of the church was the norm. Herbert O’Driscoll remembers it well and maybe you do too, but we can’t just hold on to memories, we must be vigilant about how we live and how we witness to the love of Christ.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan

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Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

Do you remember going to church when you were young? What I remember is the mystery and transcendence of God back in the sixties. It was a different age in the life of the church. Churches regularly filled the pews and needed to set up extra chairs in the isles to accommodate the crowd at holiday services. I love to hear the stories of when St. John’s was packed on holidays, stories of youth group trips, Sunday school, Harvest Fairs, St. Hilda’s guild projects, and other fond memories that so many of our parishioners have. If there is one constant that I always hear at St. John’s, it is the family atmosphere, welcome, and friendships that people experience when they come here.

But in 2021, in the madness of this pandemic, we tend to lose focus on why coming to church on Sunday (or watching on zoom) is important. Many people see church as an option when it is convenient. God offers something far more precious than most people can ask or even imagine. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” This means that everything eternal will be just fine. Although our times may be difficult, Jesus has taken care of our worst fear. This used to be known by a majority of people, but a majority of folks now face uncertainty. Without faith in the resurrection, we are forced to live in anxiety and fear.

When I was young, I remember the words of the Eucharistic prayer and the sound of the clergy’s voice is forever etched in my memory, “Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you.” I then witnessed the transcendence of the bread at the table turned into the body of Christ. We were offered the real and tangible Body of Christ, who died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. At the end of the service, after singing hymns like Onward Christian soldiers; we strode out of the church with Christ like purpose to bring the kingdom of God closer and to make God real to a hurting world. TH Episcopal Church was at the forefront of civil unrest because the life of Jesus Christ stood in opposition to the practice of racial bias and we choose to follow his path and not the path of the “real world.” Martin Luther King Jr. and others preached a Gospel that changed the way we behaved as a country and brought Good News and hope to those who were oppressed. We were a church that heard the Gospel and demanded justice in the world. I remember leaving the church building with the purpose of God, through the self-giving love of Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. I think of my memories of my childhood as the passing of an age. But I believe with all my heart that St. John’s is doing the work of Christ. We preach the saving grace of Jesus Christ through our faith and through our actions. Please join us.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan

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“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” 

Ephesians 3:16-21

In today’s reading from Ephesians, Paul prays to the good people of Ephesus that their inner being will be strengthened by the love of God in Jesus Christ. We can all pray for the good folks at St. John’s that we will comprehend this love, that Christ will dwell in our hearts, and that we may reflect that love to all the people we meet in our lives. In today’s reading, Paul speaks of the oneness of God’s love. Although the world tries to divide us, the love of Christ is wider, longer, taller and deeper than anything in the temporal world. Please pray for social justice, “Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

One of the ways we work for oneness of God’s love at St. John’s and in this community is through our racial reconciliation and social justice committee. We meet on every third Thursday at 6:30PM and we are planning a wonderful schedule for the fall. We need to your help! Despite the odds, God can make all things new again. God “is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,” Please join me in the prayer for social justice and if you are so inclined, in the fight for God’s justice and mercy to all who are hungry, thirsty, naked, oppressed or hurting. It begins with prayer. Then we feel the love of God in our heart. After we reach our arms to others, the Holy Spirit will change the world to Christ.

In Christ’s love,

Fr. Duncan

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The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

We profess our loyalty to God. God provides life and security. God is all we need! We shall lack nothing if we follow our shepherd. This is a way of being. Put your trust in God. Seek ye first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). The word shepherd in Hebrew can also mean friend or pal. Christianity is a relationship with our shepherd. The relationship that we have with Jesus Christ is passed on to others by the love that we show to those in need and by our burning desire for justice and righteousness.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Palestine is a desert and the sheep need to be led to green grass to eat and water to drink. This means that we will have sustenance (food and drink) from God. It means to be safe from harm. We wear our masks when necessary, stay a safe distance apart, and get our vaccines because we don’t want to spread this disease any longer. In fact we want to do what is necessary to end this pandemic, get our economy back on track, and care for those who have been affected by this past year financially, physically and mentally. The shepherd needed faith because there was not much sustenance in the desert. They needed to find food for that day. Tomorrow was always in God’s hands.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

God keeps me alive. Food, drink and shelter are provided. We depend solely on God. God draws us to the path of righteousness and justice . While some will be selfish and gather more than they need for themselves at the cost of others, Jesus teaches us to be self-giving. The environment is a great example of this. We need to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and we need to reduce our use of waste products like plastics that are filling our oceans and landfills. We need to stop using poisons and eating carcinogens. We need to eat healthy, exercise, rest, and give to others to maintain our good health. This pandemic has taught us that many folks don’t have enough access to healthy foods and have developed poor habits. As a parish, we need to accept our differences and work together.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

This puts God in charge of protecting us from walking in the shadows. God leads us home from exile. Jesus shows us the way from brokenness into wholeness and from death into life. We walk through the desert to higher ground. Jesus came out the other side of death to lead us to Beloved community. We don’t end up in the desert. Life doesn’t end in death. Death is always right there. But Shadows can’t hurt you. Angels are with you. He will send his angels (Mark 13:27). The shepherd is with us through the challenging times. The host of heaven is with you. 276 years of St. John’s folks are already through the desert and comfort us by their prayers for us.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

God is sovereign. God is in control, not us. In this week’s Gospel of Mark, Jesus asks the disciples to come with him and rest. We can follow a path of a selfish, unhealthy lifestyle of the shepherds in this week’s lesson from Jeremiah or the self-sacrificing path to glory. God’s Kingdom is right here and we need to witness to others the love in our hearts that overflows to others.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The word mercy in Hebrew is hesed (God’s love or mercy) Death has been rendered harmless in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God offers every single one of us abundant life that is characterized by goodness and mercy.

In Christ’s goodness and mercy,

Fr. Duncan

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In July, we will feature the cartoons of Cuyler Black.

I remember my EFM classes for the wonderful relationships we formed and for readings and conversations that challenged my faith. Early in my class, I learned that the people of God followed a regular pattern of creation, sin, judgement and redemption. One of objectives in EFM is the “development of skills in theological reflection. The goal is to learn to think theologically. By examining their own beliefs and their relationship to our culture and the tradition of our Christian faith, participants can learn what it means to be effective ministers in the world. In coming to terms with the notion that everything we do has potential for manifesting the love of Christ, we discover that our ministry is at hand wherever we turn.” This Sunday at 10:00AM, we celebrate the graduation of Dr. Nina Greif. Please join me in congratulating her for completing the Education for Ministry four-year program. Please consider joining our new class in September.

This week’s Gospel is Mark 6:14-29. Herod (Antipas) was a first century Jewish leader in Galilee. John the Baptist criticized him for marrying his brother’s wife.  Herodias had divorced her husband and married her husband’s brother. Herod had a celebration at his compound and was delighted by a dance that his wife’s daughter preforms for his guests. Salome was unmarried at the time, but later would marry her uncle and then her cousin. Herod offers his step-daughter (and niece) anything she wants, up to half his kingdom. Salome talks to her mother and Herodias tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who Herod has imprisoned for speaking a truth that he didn’t want to hear. Herod beheads the prophet because he has offended his wife, Herodias.

At St. John’s, we try and stay focused on our mission to “Know Christ and make him known.” This Sunday at 4:00PM we will celebrate our Friendship Day with St. Augustine’s. There will be great music, witness talks and lots of singing from both of our choirs. You can view the program on zoom.

In Christ's love,

Fr. Duncan

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“Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live. So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” (Mark 5:22-29).

There is no doubt that Jesus is a healer. Jesus is healing folks and announcing the coming of the Kingdom. What is evident in the lesson this week and next week is that the coming of the Kingdom happens through our faith and through a relationship with God. In my teaching sermon two weeks ago, I mentioned that the Kingdom of God is the gathering of believers that follow the will of God. The irony of being a Christian is that without faith you can’t even imagine the coming of the Kingdom. With faith and a relationship with Jesus Christ, you can’t imagine anything besides the coming of the Kingdom.

This is what makes St. John’s such a special place. Many of us have journeyed through difficult waters during the pandemic, but our faith and the prayers of our brothers and sisters have guided us. Jesus not only healed folks with faith like the woman in the Gospel, but heals faithful folks every day. God can’t fix every problem we have, but Jesus can walk with us through the stormy days. The Kingdom comes when we feel our fellow St. John’s parishioners right there with us.

Even Jairus, a synagogue ruler, believes that Jesus has the power to heal his daughter. There is no doubt that his power comes from above. When your mind is closed to the possibilities of the coming of the Kingdom, you will struggle to have faith in a being greater than yourself. The woman in our story believes that Jesus has the power to heal her. This is not to say that God will answer every prayer and heal every disease, but that the healing had a purpose in God’s plan. Jesus feels the energy leave his body as this faithful woman touches Jesus’ prayer shawl. Jesus will often tell folks that their faith has made them well. When we open our minds to the possibilities of the Kingdom, God will keep us on the path to the Kingdom of God. When we believe that Jesus was merely a Carpenter who did good things instead of the Son of God, we close the door on the power of the Holy Spirit. When we have faith that God loves us dearly and we are open to the power of the love of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, we can have an incarnational expectancy.

St. Augustine said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. Therefore, there is no one on this planet that God loves more than you and no one that he loves less.”  An incarnational expectancy is the knowledge and faith that God is present at St. John’s and that we are in store for amazing things.

Ministries like our thrift shop, our racial reconciliation committee, our nursery school, our concert and music programs, altar guild, our morning prayer, lay ministers, nursery school, spirituality group, Hilda’s group, or bible study all point to the coming of the God’s Kingdom when we have faith. Mission trips next year to Puerto Rico, Navajoland, and the southern border in Arizona will happen only if we have faith in the power of God’s love.

Right now, as we emerge from the pandemic, is a great time for all of us to re-claim our faith, develop our relationship with Jesus Christ, and discern God’s call in our lives.

In Christ's love,

Fr. Duncan

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“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

(Mark 4:41)

In last week’s sermon, Fr. Duncan spoke about the parable of the mustard seed, and how, although even the smallest of seeds may grow to be a very large bush. The seed represents the humble beginnings of the kingdom of God. We are God’s seeds. Have we nurtured our individual seeds through prayer – to become strong enough to advance God’s kingdom in our own world today? We cannot successfully go forward unless we know who Jesus is – and we learn through prayer, study, and being in communion with all of the faithful. This is how our faith, knowledge, and ability to be obedient grow, enabling us to be more effective in our various ministries.

This week, further on in Mark, the disciples find themselves in the midst of a storm. While they have been listening to Jesus preach and heal all day, when that storm surges and they believe they are all going to die, the fear that arises in them is palpable. It almost seems like an eternity before they turn to Jesus, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38) They clearly expected a response from Jesus, but after he calmed the storm, their fear did not abate. “Who then is his that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Who IS this Jesus?

Is our God big enough to calm the storms in our lives?  Lately there have been many storms that we have been suffering through together, and perhaps some that you have had to endure on your own. Think about Job. In this week’s lesson, God actually speaks to Job from the whirlwind of a storm – chastising him for not really knowing him deeply enough:

“Who is this that obscures my plans

Brace yourself like a man;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.” (Job 38: 1-3)

Job’s picture of his God was just not big enough, but ultimately, Job is forced to grow and to see God in a much grander way.

Like Job, the disciples too are now forced to take another look at this Jesus who calms the storm. Clearly, he is more than a teacher. His disciples at least got the question right, but the story is more than just about their lack of faith. “Who IS this Jesus?” 

In both Job and Mark, the storm reveals something about God, the world, and faith. Ultimately, in the case of Job, he will begin to have hope and even risk starting a new family after his many great losses. In Mark, the disciples now take one more step toward recognizing Jesus as their Messiah.

As we navigate the storms in our lives, let us work together to grow our faith.  Perhaps then, our tiny mustard seeds will grow into amazing bushes more visible and vibrant as we continue to live out our Mission in the community: “To Know Christ and To Make Christ Known.” Maybe our bush will even bloom into exciting new ministries!

Faithfully yours,

Claire Mis, Seminarian

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